NEW YORK — New York state prisons continue to impose prolonged isolation on their population despite the fact that a law prohibiting such punishment went into effect a year ago, according to a report released Wednesday by the Correctional Association, an organization independent with authority from the legislature to oversee prisons.
The report also includes allegations of abuse by staff that show the malfunctioning of the Humane Alternatives to Prolonged Solitary Confinement Act (HALT), launched in March 2022.
That law, in addition to limiting the maximum that a person can remain incarcerated to 15 days, also includes measures that reduce the severity of confinement, such as a minimum of time out of cell or a therapeutic program.
It also reduces the number of disciplinary offenses that can be punished under this measure and excludes various groups of people, such as those under 21, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with disabilities or mental illness.
The Association acknowledges in its report that in anticipation of the implementation of the law, the Department of Correction ended the practice of “keep lock” (keep it closed), reduced the use of Special Housing Units (SHU in English), another form of segregation, and closed the Southport prison, dedicated to isolation.
However, the Association, which monitored the implementation of the law for eight months, found that this agency is systematically violating almost all articles: retaining people in the SHU up to more than six times the permitted limit of 15 days and disproportionately sending Blacks and Latinos into isolation.
According to the group #HALTsolitary Campaign, while blacks make up 18% of New York’s population, they represent 48% of those in prison and 64% in solitary confinement.
There are other violations that the Department of Prisons practices, such as keeping people with mental health problems and disabilities in isolation and failing to provide inmates with the required time out of their cell “including locking people up for 21 to 24 hours a day, which is equivalent to solitary confinement under a different name,” the #HALTsolitary Campaign said in a statement reacting to the report.
“It is beyond disturbing that state prisons, like many local jails, are systematically violating almost every component of the law and continue to send people – disproportionately Black and Latino – to solitary confinement for weeks and even months,” the statement said. Senator Julia Salazar, one of the authors of the HALT law.
Activist Roger Clark, a survivor of solitary confinement and a member of the #HALTsolitary Campaign, said he was “deeply concerned” by the violations noted in the report as this law “was enacted to ensure that people incarcerated are not subjected to inhumane conditions and harmful effects of prolonged solitary confinement”, which can have “devastating effects” on mental state.
“It is critical that Governor Kathy Hochul act now to ensure that prisons and jails uphold the law and end this torture,” he said in the statement.
